


Fire and Feathers

by noblewriting



Category: Beauty and the Beast (2017), Beauty and the Beast - All Media Types
Genre: 'i have been burned by you before!!', F/M, SO MUCH ANGST but also happy endings, i love these two too much, may be edited extensively once i am not overtired, post-curse BATB
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-11
Updated: 2017-04-11
Packaged: 2018-10-17 14:56:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10596354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noblewriting/pseuds/noblewriting
Summary: Immediately after the curse, from Plumette's point of view. A sequel of sorts to "Lit by the Sun."





	

She is across the room when it happens, but she flies to Lumiere's side the minute the woman starts to shine. The ballroom feels lit by lightning—yellow sheaths of light are crackling out from the old woman; Plumette would assume she was on fire if the woman's face was not so tight, so in command, so focused on the prince and not her blazing robe. She finds herself backing into the shadows, Lumiere somewhere behind her, Cogsworth steadying himself on her shoulder.

It is horrifying; it is _magic_. Plumette never knew. Inaction captures her; she is too caught up in catching everything—the witch's face, Adam falling to his knees, the cries of the musicians—to move forward, to help the Prince, to do anything but stand silent as a night. Somewhere, she feels like this is how it always is: the Prince about to be hurt, and her silence doing as much ill as good. _No, no_ , she rebukes herself, _he did this, he has been unkind so many times_. And yet—the woman—the magic.

Screams from the guests as Adam's face ripples and contorts. His finest coat shreds to the floor; he wails, his voice not rising as in human agony but lowering to a roar. Plumette thinks she catches tears on his face, but she is too horrified by his horns and hair and hideousness to care; a part of her screams, _go help him, help!_ , but she turns away and hides her face, and she knows her lover is reaching toward her to pull her from the scene—

The scream of Madame de Garderobe is cut short, and Plumette herself cries out as a pain beyond pain rips at her bones. Lumiere never reaches her in time. She feels herself thrown, she feels herself enchanted, and then she feels—nothing.

The castle is silent. The castle is dead.

Plumette is shocked to know she still can see. She can't feel herself breathing, but that must come back shortly—if she can see, she must still be alive. She tries to get her bearings. It is strange, she cannot—she doesn't know what, but the word _sense_ crosses her mind—something is wrong, she can't tell where she is, though she sees it plain enough. The floor of the West Wing's drawing room, the one she's swept so many times. But it takes her far too long to realize, as if she expects to know it by some other way then seeing.

 _How did I get here?_   She was across the castle half a second ago. She struggles to pull herself up—her weight is all wrong, her arms are all wrong. Lumiere was just here. She turns to look for him—but no, he is not there, though the room seems to swell around her to five times its size. It is hard for her to bend to pull herself up. She reaches out a leg to steady herself, and finds her leg isn't there.

 _Her leg isn't there._ Panic rises quickly. The shock of what has happened is crashing in her mind—she cannot remember how it started, or in what order, except that her beloved was nearby and now he _wasn't_. She had to get up, for his sake. She had to find Lumiere.

She threw herself up with an effort, though how on earth she managed it with the legs of a ghost was a crisis she didn't have time to solve. She was upright, yes; and the room was much bigger than it had been, yes. Fine. Keep moving. Keep looking.

Plumette pushed herself into the hallway, also far bigger than she remembered. At least she was moving quickly—she had glanced down once and found herself wearing a sort of feathery skirt, but that was fine, she didn't need to consider it right now.

There was something else to consider, though—how deadly quiet the palace had gone. What had happened to the screams? No, no, the screams had stopped—but she should hear people running, at least, throwing open doors and moving fast on high-heeled shoes as they fled. The silence was ghastly; and so was—Plumette tried to find the word for it—no _scent_. She couldn't smell the wine of the guests anymore, the crush of sweat and old perfume the ballroom had been filled with. Ah, well, she wasn't near the ballroom—maybe that was it, maybe she just wasn't close enough to smell her world; she nodded at herself in a mirror, as she always did to feel more confident, and kept on going.

And kept on coming back. Plumette wasn't in the mirror.

Her face was not there. Her face had vanished, had been turned into a mockery of her mind, a vision of frivolousness. The face she had cared for had disappeared and grown a beak and beady eyes. The face Lumiere had loved was gone.

Plumette knew this face; it was a joke on the end of a duster she used every day, some woodcarver's whim to turn a tool into a swan. And now it was her own, and she was trapped by it.

Her horror swallowed her and was replaced with fear.

 _I cannot find Lumiere_ , Plumette thought. _He must never see me this way. I could not bear it_. She had to hide, immediately. She could not go to the ballroom. _I will find a room and hide there until he never sees me again_ , she whispered. _I have been cursed, and I cannot bear it._

She fled from the room and the mocking mirror, no longer caring that she felt no limbs. Her panic raised her off the ground, and she found herself flying around corridors and up stairways like a ghost. As far from the ballroom as possible, as far from the humiliation of having him see her this way, with this horrible face—

A monster swept by her, knocking her aside with one paw. Plumette shattered into the wall, her vision shaking from the impact as the beast roared and howled and pounded up the stairs with a strength it couldn't bear. _Adam,_ whispered a voice in her head; but no, the 'beast' was just a joke, no harm came from a joke between her and Lumiere, this couldn't possibly be true. She couldn't—she couldn't quite move—and the silence outside the cries of the beast was unbearable—

"Fire! **_Fire_** ," yelled Cogsworth, and she was up again. A yell from below her; and though she couldn't smell it, she could see it, the smoke peeling up through the floor. So someone was alive; _of course the majordomo would survive_ , thought Plumette, _and_ _now I must disappear from him, too_. That the man who had guarded her since she was eleven, kept her on time and cared for her like a niece, should see her this way— _I must hide from him, and Mrs. Potts, and Lumiere as well;_ they wouldn't even know her, cursed as she now was, and Plumette cried out and fled. She went through the hallways, away from the Beast, away from the ballroom. She knocked past a teapot, and flew down the stairs; she heard a cry of pain from a nearby bedroom, one that sounded like Madame de Garderobe, and avoided that, too, horrified that the grand lady who had praised her beauty earlier might now see her so transformed. Plumette had to _hide_.

The fire was ahead of her; something had set light to one of the velvet curtains that divided the hall from the study, and now the doorway was in flames save for one gap between the curtain and the frame. _Parfait, perfect,_ she would fly through the fire and throw herself inside, and no one would dare find her while she burnt away and woke up from this horrid dream. She soared over a clock—why was there a clock moving on the floor?—and passed inside, letting the fire close the door behind her. Smoke clouded the room, and she couldn't smell it. She landed on the floor, and felt nothing.

 _Nothing_.

She heard more cries of "fire!", but she saw no one. The room around her began to burn and singe. The fire would spread to her in a minute, and she would burn up, and good riddance—this dream was worse than Paris during the plague, worse than her nightmares, worse than the swan's beak she now had. Her feathers—ugh! her _feathers_ —they would burn and melt quickly enough, and she would be forgotten. But—oh—how she would miss Lumiere.

_"Sacre bleau!"_

Plumette jumped. Alone? She had been alone—this room was on fire, no one would be in it, they all would have fled from the cursed prince and the cursed maid. It was only her and furniture. And yet—

"Plumette! _Plumette!_ "

Something in the smoke was moving, something not much bigger than her now diminutive self.

"These flames, can you believe it? Plumette, Plumette! You will burn alive," and Lumiere threw himself toward her, then threw himself away with a gasp of horror. But he was not horrified by her face—he was staring at his hands, or where they used to be, as if horrified he might have hurt her with them. Plumette stared at the candelabra in front of her, and saw her lover's face in gold. 

"I cannot touch you—Plumette, ma cherie, run, run," and Lumiere is imploring her through a face that shines. "Ma cherie, you must escape."

"Lumiere? Lumiere, you know me?"

"I always know you," and Lumiere's face is distracted, tormented by the oncoming fire, but a small smile still sparks across his face when he looks at her. "Ma cherie. Plumette."

Plumette can feel nothing, and yet she is sure she feels one heart beat—just one—throb somewhere, deep inside where her chest used to be.

"You have to flee here." Lumiere is begging, his hands—his flames—his hands gesturing uselessly. "Mon amour, I can melt in this fire, but I cannot see you burn. We cannot leave by the door, but you could fly out that window and be safe. Leave me, ma cherie, leave me."

He looks so small, now, so golden, so in love. Plumette remembers how he looked this morning, shining in his best coat and wig, and her heart swells. Lumiere, mon amour, Lumiere.

"Blow out your candles," says Plumette. "And hold onto me."

Her wings are not strong yet, and his metal burns her as he wraps his tapers around her. But it doesn't matter; she is his Plumette, and he is hers. Somehow, they still fit—the clunky candelabra balancing himself on the dainty feather duster as she lifts off. She pulls herself away from the fire, as it rips across the floor, flying with the man she's rescued through one open window, and landing safe across the castle as fire consumes the other room.

She settles him onto a table, carefully, trying not to scratch his metal shoes. He gasps and sits back, and Plumette almost cries at how human he looks still—the same position he used so many times as they sat on her bed, or laughed in the kitchen, or lounged in the ballroom. He tries to rub his eyes, and frowns when he only finds a candle near his face.

"I might need you to tickle my nose," he says. "I know it's all metal now, but I _swear_ I can still feel it itching."

A laugh ripples out of her. She settles her feathers beside him. "Did you set fire to the curtains yourself? You are oh so mischievous."

"Mon amour! I meant to merely move them. But you know how I tend to light up a room," and the terrible grin etched across his burnished face makes her want to cry and kiss him all at once. Their laughs ring round the room, and if Plumette closed her eyes she still thinks they could be human.

"I cannot touch you," Lumiere whispers quietly. "I know you felt a burn just now."

"At least I felt something," she whispers back. "I am so happy you are here."

"You are as beautiful as you ever were," says Lumiere, "and just as kind, too. At least while I am cursed, you remain enchanting."

They could sit here forever, enjoying each other so, lovers in any form. Except—

"The clock," says Plumette suddenly. "It's _Cogsworth_."

 _"Sacre bleau_ ," cries Lumiere. And life is never quite the same.

 


End file.
